Third Party or Independent Political Buttons

The top dozen or so candidates within the two major parties are receiving the lion’s share of the attention from those who collect political memorabilia.

And yet, as in every election year, there are other parties and other independents also waging a campaign for nomination or for election in 2008, 52 in fact. Some of the names are recognizable from previous campaigns such as Ron Paul, who ran as a Libertarian, and is now running as a Republican. If he loses this race, he will probably be picked up as the party nominee for president by possibly the Libertarians and at least one other political party, as well. Another example is Ralph Nader who ran on the Green Party ticket in 1996. Other candidates aren’t quite so recognizable, for example, Brian Moore, nominee of the Socialist Party; Gene Amondsen, nominee of the Prohibition Party; and Co Martin who is running as an Independent.

So who said you had to collect only the most noticeable and winning candidates? Many of the independent and third party political campaign buttons are at times just as highly collectible as the more traditional party buttons simply because fewer of them were created and fewer still routinely survive over a generation.

I’ve provided a few of the past 3d party and independent candidate buttons from the website of my friend John Low at http://www.banningandlow.com to give you an idea as to what you’ll find when you do your own ‘campaigning’ for independent and third party political buttons. They could still use your ‘collectible’ vote.

Others running as Third Party or Independents for 2008 (from Wikipedia):